Lush Money (Filthy Rich)

by Angelina M. Lopez

  But she was no match for Mother Nature.

  That glorious whore socked in SFO with fog—it was the San Francisco airport; of course there was fog!—grounding Roxanne’s plane for hours. And then she pummeled Newark with a surprising summer squall and what was supposed to be a refueling stop turned into another hours-long delay.

  So by the time Roxanne’s plane finally screeched onto the Monte’s airstrip, the press conference was minutes from starting. Roxanne, Sofia, Henry, and Helen raced from the airplane to the waiting limo while Carmen Louisa held the door open, imploring: “¡Rápidamente!” Henry terrified the poor driver by shoving him over to the passenger seat and taking the wheel.

  As he rocketed them out of the parking lot, the rest of them kept their eyes on the limo’s television screen, tuned to a livestream of the press conference. A stage decorated like a renaissance fair had been set up on the Castillo del Monte’s lawn, with the castle’s ancient brick walls as a backdrop. Flashy gold and red velvet fabric covered every inch of the stage in swags and bows and banners, and honest-to-God, men in livery and holding bugles stood at each side of the platform. The camera focused on a reporter, who gave useless commentary as her peers and competitors jostled and moved around her. The sale of the Monte would have gone unnoticed without the notoriety Roxanne had brought to it. With her help, Easton Fuller had created the ideal media circus to announce his new amusement park to the world.

  Roxanne pressed her heel to the floor as if her will could make the limo go faster.

  Her sister-in-law cursed in the seat next to her. Sofia pulled the phone from her ear. “He won’t pick up,” she said, stabbing at her phone in frustration.

  Carmen Louisa had reported the same thing when they’d leapt into the car: “He wouldn’t listen. He locked me out of his office once he knew what I was there for.”

  Sofia had called Mateo once they realized they might not get to him before the press conference. And he’d been furious. Roxanne hadn’t heard his exact words, but she could hear his shouts above the plane engine noise. He’d refused to talk to Roxanne. But he’d texted her: Let me do this for you. I’ll see you when it’s done. He’d ignored the rest of their calls and texts and, apparently, locked their emissary out of his office.

  Roxanne pinched her lip and wrapped her arm around her jumping, burbling, coffee-coated stomach as she anxiously watched the screen.

  She didn’t want this from him.

  He thought he was handing her gift-wrapped proof of his love, trading the Monte to protect her, choosing her over the Monte. But she never wanted or needed him to choose. She would never ask him to give up something that gave him joy and purpose, just as he would never ask her to give up her empire. That was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him, because they mutually enjoyed, respected, and supported each other’s dreams.

  Yes, it might have taken Mateo a little longer to get back into her good graces if he hadn’t taken such extreme measures (okay, it might have taken a few years, a kidnapping, and bondage to get her to ever speak to him again). But she couldn’t imagine that romantic gestures that robbed you of everything important to you were the best foundation for a lifelong love.

  Because that’s what she wanted with Mateo: forever. How could they start on the first day of forever when he’d sacrificed everything for her? How could he not come to resent her? How could he not come to hate her? She didn’t want to be the cause of diminishing him and forcing his capitulation to his father. She wanted him full and fighting, and she wanted to stand by his side and fight right along with him.

  So they had to get to the press conference before—

  Roxanne’s heart sank as bugles trumpeted in the limo’s speaker. On the screen, a procession of people made their way up onto the stage. First, King Felipe, belly tightly encased in his shiny Italian suit, dark hair slicked back, smug smile on his fat face. Then Roman Sheppard, with that still and steady way he had of moving. The traitor.

  Next was her husband. Still her husband, regardless that they’d both signed the divorce decree and she’d left that truly atrocious ring at home. With his rigid jaw and steely gray suit, Mateo looked like a sharp blade of determination. His beautiful dark-and-light hair, touched with gold, waved back over his collar as he kept his chin up. He would take whatever punch his father wanted to give.

  Behind Mateo, Easton Fuller walked onto the stage.

  Roxanne gasped. Clinging to Fuller’s arm, her blond hair in an updo and her body sheathed in a tight purple dress suit, was her mother. Tonya Medina grinned at the cameras like she’d won the lottery. Fuller smiled down at her and patted her hand reassuringly as he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  Her mother was the knife Fuller was holding to Mateo’s throat. She was his insurance that Mateo would attempt no last-minute maneuvering.

  “Faster, Henry!” Roxanne urged. The stately vehicle gave a lurch, trying to answer Henry’s lead foot.

  As the others took their seats on ancient, carved wooden chairs set to one side of the stage, the king walked up to a swag-covered podium, smiling and waving and pointing at various members of the press. He clenched both sides of the podium with thick, bejeweled fingers like he finally had his hands on the world he wanted. Roxanne had never hated a man more.

  After a welcome and some platitudes, the king said, “This is an historic day for me, your king, and a new beginning for the Monte del Vino Real.” He leaned on one side of the podium and gave the camera what Roxanne assumed was supposed to be an endearing look. “It’s been tough. Being a king in the twentieth century isn’t all wine and serving wenches,” he chuckled. “But I single-handedly held the Monte together with the sweat of my brow, the love for my family, the commitment to my people, and the dignity of my royal blood. Now, at last, I have compadres to share my burden. I want to thank them.”

  He swept his hand toward the people seated in the chairs. “First, my son, Roman.” He said it in the Spanish way, Ro-MAN, and the man tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Mi hijo, without your help, I never could have gotten your little brother to think more practically.

  “Next, CEO Easton Fuller.” He’d purposefully drawn attention to Mateo and then skipped over him. Mateo didn’t react. “Mi amigo. Hermano.” The king clapped his hand over his heart and Fuller copied “his brother” with exaggeration, making the crowd titter. “You have helped make my dreams, and thus every dream of the Monte del Vino Real, come true.”

  In the limo, Carmen Louisa groaned in disbelief.

  “Finally, we have a new friend to the Monte. Tonya, come here, please.” Roxanne fought the urge to cover her eyes as her mother stood up, shimmied down the tight purple skirt that had ridden up scandalously high, and slinked her way across the stage toward the king. She took the arm he offered her and pressed it against the hard edges of breasts that revealed themselves in the deep V of her suit coat. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce Tonya Medina, mother of my daughter-in-law, Roxanne Medina.”

  A sudden blast of urgent noise from the press and a sparkle of camera flashes indicated what a shocking reveal this was. The king and Tonya gave matching, hungry smiles.

  Her mother leaned into the microphone. “Hey, y’all,” she called.

  “Can you imagine hiding this jewel away in Kansas?” the king said.

  Tonya leaned into the praise and looked directly into the camera, arching her back like a swimsuit model. Roxanne felt the hit of that gaze deep in her trembling gut. Tonya was teasing her, walking the tightrope of everything she’d reveal if Roxanne didn’t stay in line.

  “I look forward to showing you the plans for the Yes, Your Majesty Resort and Theme Park. I’ll give you our timeline—we’ll be taking reservations in six months—and I’ll even discuss the advantages of signing up for His Most Royal Highness vacation package. But first, we need to handle some paperwork.”

  The king tu
rned and motioned an impatient finger at Mateo, the son who had done everything in his power to keep the Monte afloat, even selling his body to a stranger.

  Mateo stood, tall and dignified, and took the time to smooth down his tie and button his elegant suit coat. Then he walked toward the king. Roxanne saw in him the resilient gait of every wrongly convicted man who kept his head high while walking to the gallows.

  Roxanne dug into the collar of her shirtdress to find her cross, wrapped her fist around it, and banged it against her chest in prayer. “Faster!” she cried.

  “We’re close,” Helen urged, trying to calm her. Roxanne glanced out the window and could see the tall tower of the Castillo like a beacon in the distance. But it was still too far. For all of his skills, Henry couldn’t shrink the distance from the airport to the castle. They weren’t going to make it.

  A shorter, bedazzled podium had been set up near the speaking podium. On it was a document stand, a leather-bound set of documents, and the ridiculous plume of a feather-tipped pen leaning out of an inkwell. Mateo walked past it and forced Tonya and the king to move back as he took his place in front of the microphone.

  Roxanne saw the king glance at Fuller. They hadn’t expected this.

  Mateo took a breath in front of the podium and then looked past the cameras, most likely toward the people of the Monte del Vino Real that had gathered to discover what their future held.

  With a sudden, grim smile, Mateo said, “With a thousand years of history behind us, we here in the Monte have never accepted change well.” Reluctant chuckles came from the crowd.

  “Today, we must change.” That line appeared between his dark, expressive eyebrows. “But we will weather this storm together. And while what I do today may not initially make sense, trust that I believe it is the best solution for all of us.”

  Mateo then looked directly into the camera. Roxanne felt those sunrise eyes in her chest as Sofia reached across the seat to grip her hand. “I know it is a lot to ask for your trust. I know I have not yet earned it. I did not treat my home with the care it deserved, and I almost let it slip through my hands. Today when I sign, although it may not seem like it, I’m holding on tight. I love my home, and I swear to you, I will protect it.”

  Roxanne jumped at the unexpected blare of the limo’s horn. She realized she could hear a tiny echo of it on the screen. She jolted to look out the window and realized they’d just rocketed through the castle gates. They just might make it.

  “Again, Henry!” she cried, and her bodyguard began to jam wildly at the limo’s horn as they raced down the long, winding drive toward the press conference. On the screen, the increasing frantic tooting sounding like a child’s antics. The camera jostled and Roxanne realized the media was reacting to the noise.

  But Mateo had moved to the shorter podium. Immune to the growing pandemonium, he picked up the feather pen.

  “Nooooo,” Roxanne keened, digging her hands in her hair. All of her money, all of her power, and she was absolutely powerless to stop her one true love from making the one mistake that would destroy him. Would destroy them.

  The limo raced past the media vans and toward the stage. The echo of the horn coming from the screen was almost as loud as the actual horn inside the limo.

  The king shoved close to Mateo and said something tight and threatening in his ear. But Mateo ignored him as he leaned over, pressed his tie against his chest to prevent it from dragging through the ink, and signed his name to the document. The king snatched the pen from his hand and pushed in front of Mateo to hurriedly scratch his name across the paper.

  The limo screeched to a stop, almost sending Roxanne into Helen’s lap. Roxanne straightened, shoved her hair out of her eyes, and looked back up to the screen.

  The king stabbed the feather pen back into the inkwell with a triumphant flourish and a gloating grin.

  It was done.

  Stunned disbelief began to cement Roxanne to the seat.

  But her sister-in-law threw open the limo door. “Let’s go!” Sofia urged, grabbing her arm. “¡Vamos!” Momentum alone had her scooching across the seat, stepping out into the blindingly blue day, and racing with Sofia across the lawn, swerving around camera guys and jumping over cables, until they both clattered up the steps to the stage. Roxanne stood there at the top, next to the idiot bugle guy, who was definitely a paid actor and not a Monte resident, gripping Sofia’s hand and smoothing back her messy hair and panting in her simple, rose-colored shirtwaist dress. For a moment, she sensed the explosion of light and noise to her left, sensed Sofia letting go and stepping away.

  Then she could see nothing, could feel nothing but the impact of Mateo’s golden eyes. He crossed the stage toward her with the force of a bomb blast, knocking out her senses to everything else as he came closer. She was deaf, dumb, and blind to all but Mateo when he buried his hands in her hair.

  He cradled her skull. “Let me see you,” he whispered, his frantic breath on her face, his gaze burning as he stared into her eyes. His thumbs stroked velvet soft at the corners, like he was touching something precious in them. “I was so scared you’d never let me see you again.”

  And then he was kissing her, pulling her up onto her toes and taking her mouth, licking in like a man who’d been battered by rain and wind but suddenly discovered refuge. He kissed her like she was everything warm and safe to him. He kissed her like she was his world.

  He pulled back as a cacophony of shouted questions and camera clicks exploded around them, his life-giving hands still on her face. He looked directly into her eyes. “I love you,” he said over the noise, loud but deliberate. “I love you, and I’m sorry I was afraid to say it. I’m sorry I hurt you. I was a coward and a fool. You’re stronger than I am.”

  With tears filling her eyes, Roxanne began to shake her head, her face still safely held by his big, demanding hands.

  Mateo just nodded. “Yes. You’re a better leader than I am. You’re a better person than I am. But I can learn. Give me a second chance and I will spend the rest of my life making myself the kind of man who is worthy of you.”

  Tears were freely running down her cheeks, gathering against his palms. She clenched the back of his hands and felt the cracks in her heart begin to heal at the warmth of the gold ring he still wore. “You already are,” she sobbed. “Mi querido, I love you. But, Mateo...” She tried to stifle her cries but couldn’t. “What did you do?”

  Instead of crying like she was, instead of mourning all he’d given up, Mateo shocked her. He winked. Then he smiled. “Trust me, Roxanne.” He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss on her tear-sheened lips. “Trust me, my wife.” He tilted her head and kissed her again. “Trust me, my perfect...” Another kiss. “Brilliant...” And another. “Beautiful...” Multitudes and multitudes of kisses. “Queen.”

  As he tilted his gorgeous head for yet another kiss, Roxanne caught a flurry of movement behind him. She clenched his wrists, stilling him, and saw Fuller bending over the pretentiously leather-bound set of documents, flipping through the pages as he jabbed his finger at them and spoke with barely restrained fury to the king. The king’s eyes flew wide, and then he was inspecting the documents, too.

  He gave an involuntary shout.

  Roxanne felt the glare of the cameras swing away. She looked at Mateo. A smile with just a touch of gloat was spreading across those gorgeous sulky lips.

  “What did you do?” she asked again, this time with wonder.

  “Espere. Y ver,” he said, wiping her tears away but leaning in for one more leisurely kiss before he turned around to face the unfolding drama, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side so she could “wait and see.”

  The heads of both Easton Fuller and the king swung around to glare at Roman Sheppard, who still sat in his seat, knees spread, arms crossed over his chest, as Tonya sat close and cooed in his ear. With her threat es
tablished, she’d already grown bored of the spectacle. Roxanne wondered if the woman even realized her daughter was on the stage.

  Without even glancing at Tonya, Roman stood in his summer navy suit and strolled toward the two fuming men. He walked with a contained power that must have made alarm bells go off in the psyches of most men whenever he walked into a room. He walked like a warrior. Her husband, even with the loose-limbed sway he gained from working in the dirt, walked like a king. The bone-deep surety of both of their walks is why, Roxanne realized, she never doubted that they were brothers.

  Roman looked down at the document over their shoulders as both men gestured and jabbed angrily. He looked back up at both of them. Their shoulders were heaving. After a moment, he simply nodded.

  King Felipe exploded. He jabbed a finger in Roman’s face and yelled expletives, his face an instant tomato red as he called his mijo “trailer trash who isn’t fit to lick my asshole.” The world’s press recorded every second of this sweaty-browed man’s “love for his family” and “dignity of his royal blood.” Some play on his earlier sanctimonious words would be the next day’s favorite headlines.

  Easton Fuller took it one step further. This Ivy League-educated CEO, whose only experience with fighting had been ganging up on landowners who didn’t want to sell, thought it would be a good idea to take a swing at an ex-Army Ranger. With the graceful ease of a dancer, Roman grabbed his punching arm, swept it around his back, and shoved the man facedown against the documents that had been his undoing.

  “Roman’s gotten better at that since the last time he tried it,” Mateo muttered to Roxanne. Her jaw had dropped somewhere below her hemline.

  CML Resorts’ termination of their CEO would be announced before the end of the business day.

  “That’s our cue,” Mateo said to Roxanne. Sofia had appeared on his left side. He offered them both an arm and then glanced to Roxanne’s right. Henry had taken the spot on the other side of her when the yelling started.